About Me

Irene wanted me to write a blog, but I thought I'd try this for a year instead.
Years later, in 2011, I realize that the above no longer makes sense, since I have stopped photographing breakfast and instead occasionally put down random thoughts. These days I photograph our granddaughter's lovely face, paint for fun, knit and teach knitting at an after-school program for girls, and read. Life is good, if a bit slow, but then, so am I.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Although I don't post photos of my breakfast any longer, I still eat it every day. Doing the photos really created a habit, so now I start the day with my poached egg whites and fruit. I've stopped the orange juice, but still have my huge latte. Life is good.

Our markets are full of ripe, beautiful blueberries from Chile. For years I boycotted Chilean products because of the country's miserable human rights policies and Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, las madres de los desaparecidos. Photos of those women made me weep. But I believe that the present goverments in Chile and Argentina are better than the old, and it's good policy to support South American farmers who aren't growing drugs, so I now buy blueberries from Chile.

This morning I rinsed the blueberries as usual, using an old aluminum sieve that came from my parents' house, rinsed them in running cold water to get them clean, shook the sieve to remove any excess water, and dumped the berries into two blue and white bowls. If I were still taking photos, today's would have been a pretty one.

I dumped the sieve into a sink of warm, soapy water, and wondered why I had done so. If rinsing the berries in cold water was sufficient for something that I was going to ingest, why did I feel the need to wash the sieve with soap? Wasn't water good enough? Wasn't it already clean?

I do this with measuring cups too, glass cups that measure water go into the dishwasher, and I don't know why. As water supplies dwindle, perhaps I need to start examining what I wash that really doesn't need washing.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

When I was doing a post every day there was a rhythm I followed. I'd make breakfast, snap the photo, eat the breakfst, post the photo (well, almost always, a few times I forgot to post till very late in the day). Although I no longer post those photos, I still think of things to blog about, but I don't seem to write them down. I have composed brilliant opening lines in my mind, but never typed them out. I think of topics that really deserve discussion, but don't elaborate at the keyboard. Somehow the thoughts flow through my brain but not down to my fingertips.

During the Olympics I meant to talk about the commentator's overuse of the word redemption, but I never wrote about how annoyed I was at the constant use and misuse of the word. I also meant to write about the lovely, touching film about Gander on 9-11 and how that small town opened its arms and hearts to thousands of travelers. And I wanted to mention how much I enjoyed the funny story about the Air Canada flight that was delayed because the travelers, watching the closing moments of the hockey game, ignored the calls to board.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Wednesday afternoons are my volunteer times, at a wonderful program for girls. Since Christmas I've been teaching knitting for an hour before we settle down to homework, and two of my friends have come to help. Today one of the girls finished her schoolwork and asked if she could knit some more. I sat down with her and we both knitted. She said something that indicated that she had mixed up my two friends, who are a mother and daughter. I said, No, Miss C is the older lady, she's V's mother, she's 87. Then the girl asked how old V is, and I told her she was two years older than I, 65. The girl said, "You're 63, and you're still walking???"